On May 4, 2020, the Prime Minister held the 33rd meeting of the Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters at the Prime Minister’s Office.

At the meeting, the participants discussed the response to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

Following the discussion, the Prime Minister said,

“It has been one month since the declaration of a state of emergency was issued on April 7. During this time, the people has made extensive efforts to reduce people-to-people contact, ideally by 80%. I would like to reiterate my gratitude for their efforts.

At the Expert meeting held today, the experts provided an analysis of the epidemiological situation and recommendations regarding next steps.

Firstly, Japan has not suffered the explosive spread of infections as experienced in other countries and the effective reproduction number is below 1. Our efforts are delivering a certain degree of results. Nonetheless, there are still a considerable numbers of new cases of infections and the decline in the number of patients has not yet reached an adequate level at this point. As medical systems continue to be stretched in several areas, it is necessary to continue the current measures for the time being. These are the views of the experts.

Based on this view expressed by the experts and also with the endorsement of today’s Advisory Committee on the Basic Action Policy, the government will extend the duration for which the state of emergency measures declared on April 7 are being implemented, until May 31. The areas subject to the state of emergency will be all prefectures and thus the current framework remains unchanged. However, ten days from now, on May 14, we intend to request the Expert Meeting to assess the situation at that moment again. We ask the Expert Meeting to conduct detailed analyses on the trend of new cases in each area and the degree of pressure on medical treatment structures. When it is deemed possible, we intend to lift the state of emergency.

The 13 Prefectures under Specific Cautions need to continue implementing the existing measures, aiming at reducing people-to-people contact, ideally by 80%. Meanwhile, I ask the other prefectures to gradually shift their measures to ones that balance preventing the spread of infections and maintaining socio-economic activities.

For example, I ask that these prefectures consider lifting or easing their respective requests for temporary closure among facilities where clusters of infections have not occurred and the three Cs (closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact setting) can be avoided, once these facilities have implemented thorough measures to prevent the spread of infections.

I also ask that citizens continue to avoid moving between prefectures, for non-essential, non-urgent trips back to their hometowns, travel, or other reasons, to the greatest extent possible, so as to prevent the spread of infections.

At the subsequent press conference, I will explain this to the people that this month is one to end the state of emergency and a period to prepare for the next step. The experts have proposed a new mode of daily life to prevent the spread of infections, with the view that the fight against this disease could be prolonged. We request that the reopening of various shops, restaurants and cultural facilities, as well as the holding of relatively small events will be conducted with the thorough implementation of preventive measures, such as social distancing between people, in reference to this new mode. We intend to formulate, within two weeks, more detailed guidelines for each industry on preventive measures aiming at full-scale reopening, in consultation with the experts.

The measures we have implemented so far, closely collaborating with prefectural governments, have clearly produced results thanks to the significant efforts of the public. I ask that you continue to exert every effort to implement measures in accordance with the basic action policy revised today.”